Baker Publishing Group will bring out its first standalone Bible next month, betting on bestselling Bible teacher Tara-Leigh Cobble’s 365 days of scripture summaries and a dedicated company-wide team to boost BPG into the ranks of publishers who count Bibles as revenue leaders year after year. For Jesse Myers, CEO of Baker Publishing Group, The Bible Recap Bible: 365-day Chronological Study Bible, which hits shelves September 2, is a way of putting BPG on the Bible map—and a test case for doing Bibles without owning a translation.

“No other Bible publisher has something like this,” Myers says. “We have so much confidence that we are willing to print over 80,000 copies. I would love for this to join the legion of Bibles that people go to and turn back to for years and years.”

The genesis of Baker’s Bible dates back to January 1, 2019 when Cobble launched the Bible Recap podcast from a makeshift home studio. Every day, she summed up Bible passages, highlighting where people could find the “joy of Jesus” in every reading. It was an immediate hit. On January 19, Bethany House came calling to talk about a book. That led to Cobble's 2020 book The Bible Recap: A One-Year Guide to Reading and Understanding The Entire Bible. It has sold almost 900,000 in all its iterations, establishing her as one of BPG's leading authors.

“On my first trip to Bloomington [where Bethany House is based], I wondered why we hadn’t done more with this title,” recalls Bob Gaudet, EVP of marketing and publicity for BPG. “Bible sales have gone up, indicating an appetite for the Bible and anything that helps people read the Bible. Readers are looking for a friendly voice and guide, and Tara-Leigh Cobble’s The Bible Recap has been recommended across the board, even in places that don’t let women preach.”

Under Myers’s leadership and with Cobble’s enthusiasm, a team was soon formed, drawing on key players from editorial, production, design, and marketing. The publishing house partnered with Crossway to license the English Standard Version (ESV), which polling showed was the most popular with Cobble’s audience.

Marrying the Bible text with the complete text of The Bible Recap required careful design work by Brian Brunsting, director of design and typesetting at BPG. His goal, he says, was to incorporate readability, length, paper opacity, and brightness, and to show, by how it looks, "how easy the Bible is to read and use.”

“We didn’t want to use thin Bible paper because we know what Bible Recap readers like and we wanted the Bible as close to The Bible Recap as possible,” Brunsting explains. So the team chose a specially coated Bible paper, ideal to prevent bleed-through, featuring Cambria font and blue ink to match the original Bible Recap brand. The new Bible totals 2,032 pages, at roughly 1,500 pages per inch of height.

The team went through several design iterations, eliminating options that were too dense and needed more margin space to allow for note-taking and readability—both key to Cobble’s brand. An outside firm handled the typesetting because BPG didn’t have the capacity in house for such a big project. And, like nearly all Bibles worldwide, it was printed in China.

Editions include a jacketed hardcover at $54.99 with 60,000 printed, and imitation leather editions in pink and brown at $84.99 with 12,000 of each printed. A special edition is also being made available to Cobble’s network of followers on her multiple platforms.

“It has wide margins for notes, and I love the single-column layout because I find it easier to read,” says Cobble. “Bethany House and BPG absolutely nailed the design and layout.”

Bringing Cobble’s Star Power to Scripture

Gaudet is positive that The Bible Recap Bible will buck a trend that most new Bibles face: a steep hill to climb for attention. The increase in Bible sales has come mostly from Amazon, “the number one retailer for Bibles,” he says. “Amazon loves backlist, and Bibles sell well as backlist.” Gaudet is counting on the popularity of the TBR suite of products to give a push to The Bible Recap Bible.

Advertising and marketing plans are set for such digital spaces as Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok, and YouTube, as well as select print properties. The team will also attend such major conferences as the Gospel Coalition Women’s Conference in 2026 and assist Cobble with her own events and marketing.

“We have a built-in audience of actual Bible readers—people who are already fans of Tara-Leigh Cobble who understand the promise of the Bible and The Bible Recap in one place,” said Gaudet. “The Bible has a long on-ramp. Think in terms of the first year, not six weeks, like a book.”

Cobble has a similar vision of success for the new Bible. “I see The Bible Recap Bible as The Bible Recap’s capstone resource,” she said. “The Bible Recap exists to equip people with tools that help them read, understand, and love the Bible. For years, TBR followers have been asking for a book that contains both the Bible and TBR, and they’ve especially wanted it laid out in order of our chronological reading plan. It’s finally here, and I am so excited to get it into people’s hands. I hope The Bible Recap Bible helps even more people encounter God in a way that transforms their lives."